Later this week the U.S. Department of Commerce will host its inaugural SelectUSA Summit, an annual convention intended to promote overseas investment in the United States. The sold-out, two-day forum will connect international businesses with U.S. economic development leaders at the federal, state, and local levels. With lingering high unemployment in the wake of the financial crisis, the White House has made attracting foreign investment and insourcing jobs a top economic priority. Read more »

A student walks on the campus of San Francisco State University (Robert Galbraith/Courtesy Reuters).

Sticker shock was rampant among many freshmen in the class of 2017. The annual price of a private four-year university is now edging toward $60,000. As a result, federal student loans will play a key role in allowing millions of students to afford college. However, as CFR Contributing Editor Steven J. Markovich notes in his new Renewing America backgrounder Student Loans and U.S. Prosperity “many graduates are concerned about encountering a weak job market and the consequences that lingering debt may have on their financial futures.”

The statue of Grief and History stands in front of the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington (Kevin Lamarque/Courtesy Reuters).

MILAN–The world’s developed countries face growth and employment shortfalls, while developing countries are confronting huge challenges in adapting to increasingly volatile capital flows while adjusting their growth patterns to sustain economic development. And yet America’s political dysfunction has come to marginalize these (and other) crucial issues. It is all very difficult to fathom. Read more »

Thomas Michel, a professor at Harvard Medical School, waits for the start of the 360th Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts May 26, 2011. (Brian Snyder/Courtesy Reuters)

It is old news that average American student performance is mediocre on international tests. With the recent release of the OECD’s first survey of adult skills, we now know that American adults continue that mediocre track record. And once again, the big achievers are Japan and small Nordic countries like Finland. Read more »

U.S. President Barack Obama walks past a pumpjack on his way to deliver remarks on energy independence in New Mexico, March 21, 2012. (Jason Reed/Courtesy Reuters)

One of the promises of the fracking revolution that has sharply increased oil and gas production in the United States is that it might help to free this country from the economic ups and downs associated with a volatile world energy market. But a new Council on Foreign Relations Energy Brief, “The Shale Gas and Tight Oil Boom: US States’ Economic Gains and Vulnerabilities,” suggests that promise is over-stated. Even as U.S. reliance on foreign oil has diminished, it is still vulnerable to price shocks that could result from events in the Middle East or elsewhere. Read more »

A woman is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange (Shannon Stapleton/Courtesy Reuters).

The following guest post was written by Curtis Valentine, a CFR Term Member and a 2013-2014 International Affairs Fellow (IAF). Curtis will be posted to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of International Affairs as a Resident Fellow for a portion of his IAF. Read more »

U.S. Park Ranger Melanie Turner posts a sign on the gate of the Paramount Ranch to close the National Park Service site at the Santa Monica Mountains in California (Lucy Nicholson/Courtesy Reuters).

It may be too soon to start talking about the long-term consequences of the government shutdown, since it could go on for a lot longer. But here’s one that worries me a lot and is getting no attention: the lasting damage it will do to the federal workforce. Read more »

National Park Service employee Richard Trott places a sign barring visitors to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on October 1, 2013 (Jason Reed/Courtesy Reuters).

Now that the government has actually shut down, the conventional wisdom is that it will be fairly short. The House Republicans, realizing they have overplayed their hand and are on the wrong side of public opinion, will back down and accept a clean, short-term continuing resolution to get the government back to work. I am not so optimistic. Read more »

About This Blog

The United States faces enormous challenges created by an increasingly dynamic and competitive global economy. This blog offers a portal to the Renewing America initiative, which sponsors research, analysis, policy ideas, and dialogue on how best to revitalize the country's economic strength and build the foundations for future prosperity and influence.